Study shows low consumer interest for motion control

Only 8% intend to buy Project Natal, 6% Sony Move

A new study by OTX GamePlan shows that videogame consumers have a very low purchase intent for Microsoft's Project Natal and Sony's Move motion controllers.

The report comes at a bad time for the format holders – both systems are due to take centre stage at E3 next week as the company's look to extend the current life-cycle of home consoles with new technology.

As reported by Gamasutra, only 8 per cent of 2000 consumers polled between May 23 and June 5 intend to buy Microsoft's Natal, while 6 per cent are prepared to pay for Sony's Move.

The poor level of interest may be a reflection of the lack of information about the systems. Only a handful of prototype games have been shown for both, and no significant third-party titles have been unveiled. Microsoft's system still goes by its codename a year after it was first revealed.

Of those intending to buy the new hardware, only 25 per cent are willing to pre-order. According to the report, only 15 per cent of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 market is aware of the devices.

"While we are still months away from launch, the current data suggests that Natal gamers are definitely Xbox 360 purists, while Move gamers have a stronger interest in other platforms," said the report.

Females make up 30 per cent of those intending to buy Move, compared to 20 per cent of those set to buy Natal.

The study also revealed the top five games across all three home consoles that those intending to buy Natal and Move are currently interested in:

Natal

Gears of War 3 – Xbox 360 (47%)

Fable III – Xbox 360 (42%)

Call of Duty: Black Ops – Xbox 360 (38%)

Halo: Reach – Xbox 360 (34%)

Dead Space 2 – Xbox 360 (26%)

Move

LittleBigPlanet 2 – PS3 (42%)

Gran Turismo 5 – PS3 (32%)

SOCOM 4: US Navy SEALs – PS3 (30%)

The Legend of Zelda 2 – Wii (26%)

Super Mario Galaxy 2 – Wii (21%)

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I don't think it's really fair to use these numbers. Once the TV campaign's start and the word of mouth spreads it may expand. That's what happened with the Wii, where you saw non-gaming people discussing it at parties, at work ect...

Of course one thing this US centric drive seems to ignoring is the average size of a European or Japanese lounge.

For a start it's a poll of a mere 2000 people.
Secondly I still do believe not many people will adopt them -yet- in comparison to just simply buying top titles for the time being. So whilst I don't believe these stats are reliable I don't think they're going to be tremendously far off either. We'll see in the near future.

Its a tough one, the price point potentially rules out a lot of the casual audience and will the hardcore fully invest in this or just see it as a gimmick? It needs a lot of support from developers to stand a chance, but can they justify development resource if there are signs it may not be the next big thing? Vicious circle with lots of risk taking ahead.

What catches my attention is that of the five top titles for people interested in Natal, only Fable III is known to have any kind of Natal support, and the people seem to be hardcore first / third person shooter fans. All Natal is likely to offer that genre is some (admittedly cool) head tracking support for peeking round corners and stuff.

By contrast, all of the PS3 titles in the top five for people interested in Move have already been announced to be supporting Move in some way, and the other two titles are on the Wii, which uses a similar controller.

As Laurent says though, the real question is whether this poll was just talking to Xbox 360 / PS3 customers, because if it was then it's of fairly limited relevance. Natal seems to be aimed at pulling in the kind of casual gamers that bought into the EyeToy and Wii for party games, not the kind of hardcore action gamers who already own an Xbox 360.

Wait, in the top 5 games of those interested in Move it says "The Legend of Zelda 2 – Wii (26%)"
Does that mean Legend of Zelda: The Adventure of Link on the NES/VC? Or have people in the States already got the new Zelda for Wii? (Assuming they count Twilight Princes as "Legend of Zelda 1")

Well Natal sucks. Maybe that's why?
You need a large space in front of and around your TV. Most don't. You don't have buttons, limiting your control. And to be honest my gamer buddies aren't exactly fit enough to jump around a whole lot. On top of that the thunder is gone with the Wii controller already out on the market for a long time.

I'd actually buy this type of controller for my PC with nice OS integration, but no chance of getting Natal for my X-Box.

As others have commented, this report is useless without a bit of context - it should really be broken up so we have awareness and interest from current PS360 owners, Wii owners and those without a current-gen console. This would give a more complete picture of what we can expect from Move and Natal's impact on different parts of the market when they launch later in the year.

The problem is people see these systems not much different then the Nintendo Wii and most that want this type of Experience already have a Wii and won't really want to have to spend extra money to get what they already have in the Wii. If Micro-soft and Sony really want to push these systems out there, they need to make people Believe it will be a better more engrossing experience then playing the Wii to get them to fork out the Extra cash. I truly don't think they can other then graphics they don't have much more leverage to make these movement controls to seem what they are just a copy of Nintendo in a round about way. Hey maybe they will prove me wrong and find the niche they need to make people over look the glaring similarties to the Wii and make them spend more money to get the add-ons.

Yeah.. and remember how everyone counted out Nintendo and the Wii this generation. Both the Natal (Wave), and Sonys Move will sell. I think the Wave will have a bigger launch, because people will be more curious about the controller free experience rather then the Move's more Wii style play that is already implemented.

They are both probably going to end up being good products and people are jumping to conclusions. Why don't people wait a couple days for E3, before judging. Geese at least let them unmask the product, before you already doom it to fail.